Comments on: Year End Blues

By: Story of the Day

Story of the Day — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:31:50 +0000

[…] Why Now?: Year End Blues […]

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:03:16 +0000

I thank you, Blogmother.

I don’t care if kids are on the lawn, it’s the Baptists that are the problem. If you’re happy the rest will work out.

By: andante

andante — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:34:08 +0000

Works for me, too.

Hee is wishing you a 2009 that brings health, wealth, happiness, and kids staying off your lawn!

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:27:20 +0000

How long until the Spring Equinox? Even though we never get below 10 hours of daylight, getting dark at 5pm is a real downer.

By: Frederick

Frederick — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:16:05 +0000

Hear, hear!

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:05:31 +0000

Just stay inside, Hipparchia, and away from on-line merchants. A year is a long time, but when they start closing libraries because of the economy there will be a lot of great deals available.

Well, that’s the way things have always been, Badtux, but there is always somebody trying to change them.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:14:30 +0000

In the long run, everything works out.

Of course, in the long run, we’re all dead.

– Badtux the Cheerful Penguin

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 08:15:47 +0000

one more day and i will have made it. one... more... day....

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:48:28 +0000

We were posting at the same time, Map.

You do occasionally get gloomy in your ‘toons and now we know it is economics classes, not vodka.

You are quite correct, that if they screw up the recovery package, this mess will drag on. The Fed has left itself powerless by setting the rate to near zero. Only a stimulus package that goes to people who will put it back in the economy has a hope of breaking the downward spiral.

All of the money that was pumped into the financial sector has effectively disappeared without helping anyone but the bankers.

The poor and unemployed are the obvious target for the stimulus because they have no choice but to spend it to live. They have to buy food and clothes, pay rent and utilities. They are the best place to start, but it needs to be quick.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 06:34:00 +0000

Someone translated “to your health” into Russian without verifying that it meant anything in Russian – it doesn’t. The “na” makes no sense at all, while “za” makes minimal sense if you are talking about medicine. The ‘Budem” makes sense in that it is the best way of saying “to our health”, although it would be literally translated as “be healthy” and is an imperative form, as is used in response to a sneeze.

When looking at the difference between good and bad times, the Russians don’t set the bar very high for times to be considered good, and bad times will kill most of the rest of the world.

I forget who wrote it, but in something I read in school there was a passage in a novel about the Civil War and a group was cut off in a blizzard sheltering under some trees and someone says the standard “We are all going to die!” and the response was “Well, at least then we won’t be cold and hungry.” Even the optimism is dark.